Walk On
by Pandorama
Summary: The days following "Chicago Way." - It wasn't just a year after the day we got married, it was the day he came back home. It will always be bittersweet, but for me, I know that will always be the day that means something monumental in our relationship.
1. 1000 Oceans

**A/N: **So it turns out, wheedling me to write DOES actually work, if it involves enough flattery. Actually, I've been working on this for something like six months and finally managed to get past the first paragraph only very recently. It should be about four chapters, unless, say, the cast of ER shows up at my apartment and volunteers to act out the scenes.

Thanks to Essy for betaing. _The Very Quiet Cricket_ belongs to Eric Carle, "Walk On" belongs to U2, and "1000 Oceans" belongs to Tori Amos, not Tokio Hotel. ER belongs to people with more money and power than yours truly.

* * *

**"1000 Oceans"**

There's a very distinct set of otherwise useless skills you pick up, working in an emergency room for a decade. How to find a place to put a patient when there are no open beds; how to construct an IV drip without any of the required materials; how to remove a shark from someone's leg without killing the shark.

How to tell someone that a person they love has died.

You can do it with your eyes closed at a certain point. Convey the right balance of compassion and reason so that they know you're truly sorry it's happened but also leave no room for uncertainty. Except when it's someone that you, yourself, love.

Greg's been dead almost an hour before I make the call. His organs are already in the care of UNOS; Chaz and Bettina are already making calls to funeral homes; Morris has spoken to Anspaugh. I'm not even certain where Luka and I are: he said that he'd pick Joe up after work and meet me at home. At this point, I don't even know if he's planning to stay the night.

My hands shake. It rings twice and for a minute I panic because I suddenly feel like if I don't hear his voice, I'll implode. And then – he answers. "Abby?"

"Hi." I can hear my voice crack, and I know he can, too.

"What's wrong? Have you been crying?"

"Luka…" Oh, god. "There was an accident. You need – "

"Are you all right?" I can hear the panic.

"Mostly. I – my wrist is broken. And I sprained my ankle. It's fine. It doesn't matter." I wish I could tell him in person instead. This seems almost cruel, but then, so does forcing him to wait for the truth. Which I have experience with. "It's Pratt. He – he died, Luka." He doesn't say anything for a few moments. "I'm so sorry."

"I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

* * *

I manage some degree of composure up until the moment I see him come through the doors, and then I start crying and he's running toward me, hands on my face, stroking my hair, and then pulling me closer, arms tight around me. I leak snot onto his shirt and I can feel him shaking. He pulls back and inspects my wrist.

"What happened?"

I wipe my nose and my eyes with the sleeve of my good hand. "I was coming back from the lake…there was an ambulance, coming from County. The patient…Pratt was in there with him…" I don't even know if I'm making sense at this point. "It was rigged. And exploded. Pratt – he made it back to the hospital – there was a hematoma – a jaw fragment – his brain – " I stop. Luka gets it, and I'm useless again, stroking his hair and crying. "I'm sorry, Luka. I'm sorry."

He holds me again, nodding, and I feel his fingers dig into me a little. His best man. And his friend – one of the few he has, and it aches, how much I wish I could take it back. "Shh." He kisses my forehead, and it's warm for a second and I actually feel safe.

I go to wipe my face and hit myself in the eye with plaster. Right. His lips twitch the tiniest fraction of an inch and he takes out a handkerchief and does it for me. "Luka." It's next to impossible to keep my voice from shaking, but I try, the best I can. "I'm so sorry. We tried everything we could. Morris, Neela, Sam, Gates – we all tried."

He closes his eyes for a few moments, and I reach up with one hand and stroke his face because I can't _not_ touch him. He brings his hand up and lays it over mine, and then leans his head into our palms. "I know you did."

"I'm sorry I didn't call sooner. It happened fast, and –"

"Stop apologizing. It's not your fault." He shakes his head slightly. "I don't blame you for any of this. I'm just – I know he couldn't have been in better hands."

Hands. It's almost funny. I glance down at my wrist and Luka catches on. "Bad choice of words."

"Yeah."

"Are you…off?"

"Two hours ago, yeah. I should see if they need me to cover…" I can't finish. "I'll check with Morris."

He nods. It takes me a few minutes, but I find Morris slumped against the counter in the trauma room Greg was in. "Hey." I crouch next to him.

"Hey."

"I…do you need me to cover?"

He shakes his head. "No. You should go home. Be with Joe."

I clear my throat. "Luka's here."

He looks at me a long moment and I can see the loss looming deep in his eyes. A small smile forms. "Good. Go – I can handle it. Tell Luka I said…" He sighs. "Life is short. And he should hang onto you."

"Thanks, Morris."

"Greg had faith in you two. Looked up to Luka. He'd be happy for you."

"I know." I reach for the counter. Damn cast again. Morris gets up and reaches out a hand to pull me to my feet. "Call me if you need to."

"Nah." He scuffs a foot on the floor. "Go make up with your man. You both deserve it."

I hug him and wonder if he's right. I still feel queasy from the guilt, but maybe it's true, that it's not worth getting hung up on when neither of us knows what tomorrow will bring. If I lost Luka…I push it out of my mind. "Archie." He looks up at me, back on the floor. "He had faith in you, too."

* * *

Luka drives me home. I still don't know what the plan is for later – if he'll stay, if he wants to move back in, all that – but we both know we need to be with Joe, so it's not much of a question of where we're both going. We don't talk much in the car, but he holds my hand, my good hand, and keeps stroking it with his thumb and the feeling of touching him is wonderful, so I just sit there, loving the feel of him. We go inside and he hangs back a minute, greeting the nanny, thanking her for staying late, while I go straight to Joe and pick him up out of his pile of blocks and hug him to me. "Mama!" He snuggles into me and wraps his arms around my neck and I kiss his head and think for a moment how his hair smells the same as Luka's even though Luka doesn't use baby shampoo.

I don't even hear the door close or the nanny leave, because my eyes are closed and I'm just swaying in place with Joe in my arms, loving him like mad, and I feel Luka's palm on my back and him wrapping himself around both of us, kissing Joe, too, and then kissing my head. It's like our own private world for a minute, and if I could just stay in that world forever, I'd be completely happy. But then, Joe is a toddler, and toddlers do not enjoy staying still for very long, so we detangle ourselves and I let Luka take him and swing him in the air a few times before setting him down.

I love Luka's face when he holds Joe. His smile could light a small city.

"Ti si gladan?" Luka raises his eyebrows at Joe. I'm trying to remember whether he's asking if Joe is tired or hungry. The giant, animated nod Joe gives him indicates the latter, since asking if he's tired tends to be met with him shouting "no" and running away from whoever might have the evil notion to make him go to bed. Luka glances at me. "I could make dinner, if you like."

"Yeah, that'd be…"

"Nice?" He smirks a little. The word "nice" for us hasn't been the same since I made the stupid decision to use it in describing our first night together in four and a half years. The flirtation it carries, that Luka is using it now, is almost overwhelming. That we're back there, I mean. Flirting.

"Yes." I blush like a schoolgirl. "It would be nice."

* * *

After dinner, Luka takes Joe up to give him a bath, since I obviously can't, and I attempt to load the dishwasher with one hand, which involves a lot of swearing. We still haven't discussed whether he intends to stay over, but so far, he's just sort of kept offering to do things, like cook, or give Joe a bath, and I can't really figure out if it's because he wants to help, because he wants to be with Joe, or because he wants to be with both of us. I can hear Joe giggling from upstairs and Luka speaking to him in Croatian, and part of me wants them to have their private moment, but the part that ends up winning out is the part that desperately doesn't want to be alone and wants to be a part of it.

"Mama!" Joe squeals when I walk in. Luka turns around and smiles at me, and I settle down on the closed toilet seat and run my fingers through Joe's wet spikes of hair. He makes to swat some water at me, but Luka catches his hand and shakes his head.

"No, no splashing water at Mommy." He points at my cast. "Her hand can't get wet."

Joe mulls this over and points at my feet. "Splash feet?"

I can see Luka trying not to laugh. "Maybe let's just wash your hair, for now."

Joe is already yawning when I help Luka wrap him up in a towel and he lays his head on Luka's shoulder and starts sucking his thumb. I rub his back. "Want Tata to put you to bed?" Ever since they were in Croatia, Luka has been "Tata." I kind of like it, how it's a recognition of that element of Luka's life, and how Joe has begun to take on that element, as well.

Joe nods sleepily and Luka smiles. "Want Mommy to come, too?" Joe nods again and shit, I want to cry and kiss both of them at once.

Luka gets Joe into his pajamas and they both settle down on the couch and I look through the bookshelf for _Goodnight, Gorilla._ "Uh-oh." I look at Luka. "Did you remember the book?"

He closes his eyes and grimaces. "I left it at…" He trails off, and I'm glad he doesn't finish with "my place" because hearing those words is not something I can handle right now. "Sorry."

"It's okay. Joe, how about we read a new book tonight?"

Joe looks at me suspiciously. "Gorilla?"

"Um…how about _The Very Quiet Cricket_?" I pull a book at random from the shelf. "I think it looks good." I sit down next to them.

Joe inspects the cover and flips a few pages and looks up at Luka like maybe he can fix the problem. "Gorilla?"

"I think we should read this one," Luka tells him. "I like this one."

Joe eventually finds our choice inevitable, if not acceptable, but continues to pout as he leans into Luka and watches with resignation as I open the book and start reading about the travails of a cricket that can't chirp.

"…as the Luna moth disappeared silently into the distance, the cricket saw another cricket. She, too, was a very quiet cricket. Then, he rubbed his wings together, one more time." I flip the next page and the book starts chirping. Joe's eyes, which were nearly closed, get wide and I realize we are now going to be reading this one quite a bit. "He chirped, the most beautiful sound she had ever heard." I close the book.

Joe reaches out and I let him take the book and he starts inspecting it, and after a minute or so figures out how to make the book continue chirping. Great. I pick him up and set him in his crib and go to take the book from him, but he pulls away and keeps a grip on it. "Joe." He shakes his head and continues to make the book chirp. "Joe, it's time to give me back the book."

"No," he says simply, and lays down on his back while still flapping the book open and shut. I look at Luka, who shrugs.

"He'll get tired of it, eventually." He watches Joe. "Or the batteries will die."

* * *

I can still hear the book chirping away as Luka and I close the door and stand in the hallway, and suddenly, without Joe there, I feel vulnerable, unsure. I have no idea what to do next. Luka doesn't seem to know, either. I take a breath. "Look, I don't know…we didn't talk about what you want to do, from here, but…tonight, at least…" I look up at him and wonder if I ever have any idea what to do when it comes to him, because my brain keeps shorting out whenever I look in his eyes. "I really don't want to be alone, tonight. You don't have to…I can sleep on the couch, if you want, or even, if you could maybe stay for another few hours and then I could – "

He stops my rambling in my absolute favorite way possible, and I wrap my arms around his neck and he puts his hands on either side of my face and for a minute, it doesn't feel strange, or uncertain, and I feel almost like everything else has been wiped clean and this is just us, how we're supposed to be. He pulls back a little but keeps his hands there. Am I crying? I don't even know. I think it's possible because my eyelashes feel sticky. "If it's okay, I was thinking maybe I could stay forever."

It would sound really corny and like it belonged in a television movie with anyone but Luka, but from him, it's perfect and sincere and one of the many things he's said that will stay with me for a very long time. "That would be…nice."

He kisses me again, and now I'm quite sure I'm crying, and smiling, and this time my hands are on his back, so I can be sure he can't get too far away from me.

Not again.


	2. Give a Man a Home

**"Give a Man a Home"**

I wake up early. Early enough that Joe won't be up for awhile, which is early. I flex my fingers.

More fingers flex back.

"Hi."

I turn my head and it's like one of those sunrises, when the sun is a perfect circle, low in the sky, and so bright that I know I'm frying my retinas looking at it, but I can't not look. And there's that warm glow around that's not orange or yellow or gold, just that indescribably wonderful color, the second most beautiful color in the world.

The color that's meeting my eyes being the first.

"Hi."

He smiles and so do I, and I feel like maybe I'm still asleep, dreaming, because it's been so long since we've been here, together, in bed, that it's surreal.

We lie there, holding hands and looking at each other, and I think about how I've never been able to look in someone else's eyes for a sustained period of time, except his. And how when we make love, he watches me, still, and sometimes I work up the nerve to watch him watching me and it's both vulnerable and incredible and it makes me want to cry and come at the same time.

Eventually he breaks the silence. "Penny for your thoughts."

"Just you." And it's that exact moment that I realize it's been a year since we had sex and that the last time I wanted him this badly was the night of Neela's wedding.

And then I think of Gallant, which makes me think of Pratt, and I let go of his hand and press my palms to my eyes and roll on my back.

"Abby?"

"I…" And there I go again, crying. This is becoming a really unappealing habit. "I shouldn't be happy."

"Why?" I can feel the mattress shift and I know he's facing me now. "Oh." He sighs. "Abby…"

"I feel like it's not fair, to him or to us, being in this situation because I should be grieving him or being happy you're here, but not at once. It's like betraying him. And you. And – "

"My father told me something, before he died." More guilt. I'm going for the guilt world record, here. I feel his hand touching mine and he pulls it off my face and closes his other one on it, and laces our fingers back together. "He said he didn't want me to mourn him. That I'd done that enough for ten or twenty people and if he could do one thing for me, it would be to take that away."

"But – "

"He cared about you. He wouldn't want you to mourn him. Remember him, care about him, but he'd want you to be happy."

"Luka – "

"You've been unhappy enough times, Abby. You have nothing to feel guilty for, for being happy."

Luka saying things like that to me…comforting me, imparting wisdom, and genuinely believing it…it's actually painful, how much I love him, like it's bound to start seeping out into the mattress, onto him, onto the floor. It's strange, because I was never like that before, romantic or passionate, but here I am feeling those things and the thing is, it doesn't actually feel strange, it feels right.

"I love you."

He smiles, that hitch in the corner of his lips, and brings our hands up to his lips and kisses mine. He doesn't have to say it back, because it's just there, in his face, and I don't have to worry about if it's genuine, because his eyes say it all.

* * *

"Are you working today?" He's making scrambled eggs and toast, and the smell of the eggs is driving me up the wall, because I haven't eaten eggs that weren't burned to a crisp in months, and his presence here coupled with food is almost too much to handle.

I pour some coffee for myself from the saucepan on the stove – this Croatian stuff has really grown on me in the past few years – and lean in to smell his cooking. "I think there's some cheese in the fridge, can we maybe put some in?" He smiles and nods, and I know he's amused by this whole thing, but come on, I haven't exactly been eating proper food in his absence. "I'm not scheduled, but I want to call in and see if they need me."

He nods, getting the unspoken reasoning, and starts adding cheese. "I'm off until Monday. I was thinking…maybe I'd go and move my things out."

"Out?" Wait. Where did that come from? I'm starting to feel anything but hungry, more along the lines of violently ill.

He puts a hand on my shoulder. "I meant out of…the other place."

I appreciate him not calling it "his place." I hate the sound of it, the implications. "I could help, depending on if I need to go in." He pauses, and I know he's thinking the same thing I am: my being there might be too weird. Like I'd be tainting the place, or myself, by going in. But it strikes me; maybe it'll be some sort of closure, us doing it together. "I don't have to. But I'd like to help, if you'll let me. Bring you back home."

His smile says it all, and he wraps his arms around me and kisses my head, and for a split second, I entertain the idea of leaving that place, sealing it, with an un-christening. But back in reality, we're not really there yet – spontaneous, or even planned out, sex. I know it'll happen at the right time, and it'll be difficult, at least on my part, feeling like I can give myself to him like that, trying not to remember what happened and still feeling like there's a layer of grime on me, but it'll be something special, too. And I want it to be intimate, safe, and there, in that place, it won't feel right.

I hope it'll feel right soon, though, because being close to him again is making me a little bit crazy.

I hug him tightly for a few minutes and then draw back because my mind is having a hard time focusing on anything but how hungry I am. "You're going to burn the eggs."

"Oops." He looks at the pan. "Too late."

"Lukaaaaa."

He chuckles and then turns to Joe, who has successfully upended his bowl of cereal and poured apple juice all over the pieces and is mashing the mess together on his high chair tray. "You deal with that, I'll deal with making new eggs."

I sigh, but accept that breakfast is yet to come. "Joe, please don't do that. Where does cereal go?"

He pushes his thumb down onto a soggy Cheerio and considers. "Here?"

"Nooo…try again."

He scrunches up his face and cocks his head. "Mouf?"

"Right. And where is your breakfast?"

"Not mouf?"

I can hear Luka laughing and I shoot him a dirty look for interrupting this teaching moment. "You know where else food goes, Joe?" He looks at me curiously as I reach in the box for a handful of cereal and proceed to chuck it at Luka. Joe giggles and Luka opens his mouth, managing to catch a Cheerio. "Here." I hand Joe a couple of his own to throw, and while I know I've just started an awful, awful trend, I love the moment itself, throwing cereal with my son and laughing while his father – my husband – laughs and ducks.

* * *

Frank picks the phone. "County." His voice sounds a little like I feel, emotionally drained to a point of delirium.

"Hi, it's Abby. Is Morris around?"

"Hang on." I hear the thud of the phone on the receiver and wait on hold for a solid three minutes until Morris answers, clearly exhausted, but that uniquely geeky sincerity shining through. "Hey. How are things?"

"Things are…good. Thanks." I can't not smile. "I know I'm not on, but I wanted to see if – "

"We're all set. Golden. Stay home and be with Joe and Luka."

"Morris…"

"It's fine, Abby. There's a moonlighter coming in at noon, and Crenshaw's helping to cover in the meantime."

"Crenshaw isn't even an attending."

"Abby." The inflection of a command is still hard for me to take seriously from someone so…not at all authoritative. Don't get me wrong, I love the guy – and he's become a really good attending and teacher in the past few years – but I can never get past how truly goofy he is. "It's covered. Please. I don't want to see you in here until your next shift."

"Thanks, Archie." A sweet goofball, of course.

"Hey – no problem. And don't worry about us. Enjoy being at home."

"I will."

* * *

We drive to the apartment whose ownership I still can't vocalize a little before noon, and I start feeling nauseas and dizzy and terrified as we pull up. This may not have been a good idea. I'm not sure I want to see it, see where Luka has been living, not wanting to be near me, these past months. Where my son was without me. He looks at me and I see the recognition. "You don't have to do this," he says softly.

"I know."

I carry Joe and follow him, up three flights of stairs, and it's gratifying in a way that it's not fancy, or anything. I guess I was worried that he'd be living a completely alternate life away from me, reveling in bachelorhood or luxury or whatever. Just escaping from me. It's irrational, I know, but still that fear was there.

The apartment is small and mostly white and I'm overwhelmed, as soon as I walk in, with the sense of loneliness, and the fear part fades in favor of aching for what Luka was going through and feeling, and it was probably close to what I was feeling without him when he was in Croatia. Desperately alone, afraid, empty, betrayed. Uncertain. I set Joe down on the floor and he heads over to a plastic play table in the corner, and I wrap my arms around Luka from behind, resting my head on his back, trying to tell him it's okay, I'm here, I love him, and how thoroughly sorry I am for hurting him. He takes my hand and squeezes it. "I still have boxes for everything. It shouldn't take more than one trip."

"What about furniture?"

He turns around and shrugs. "It's junk, mostly. I think there's a women's shelter a few blocks down. I'll see if they want it."

The impermanence of it reassures me, somehow. He planned on coming home.

I help him put Joe's things in a box – there really isn't much; he'd grab things from Joe's room when he'd pick him up. When we're done, he nods to where his room is, and I shake my head. I can't go in there, can't look at it, where my husband slept without me. "It's okay," he says. "You do the kitchen."

I'm packing things into another box and am going through the cupboard when I see it. A box of Pop-Tarts. I know Luka hates them and Joe isn't all that keen on them, and I don't know exactly what to do with their presence, and just put them on the counter while I finish cleaning things out. Luka comes out from the hall with a box a couple minutes later and I hear his footsteps and look over. He's holding the box of Pop-Tarts, looking nostalgic. "I just put them in the cart one day. I didn't really think about it. When I realized…I just bought them anyway. I guess I wanted them there."

I put down the cup I'm holding and go over to him and just kiss him, for all I'm worth, and I feel his arms tight around me, and he's tense, and I think just as terrified as I am at what we almost lost.

That box, I know, is never going to get eaten. It's going somewhere out of reach, so I know it's there but no one will ever touch my box of Pop-Tarts my husband bought for me.


	3. One Night

**"One Night"**

"Abby."

"No. No, no, no…"

He smiles into my neck. "I'll make you breakfast."

"Five more minutes." It's not actually the sleep I'm craving, it's lying here with him spooned against me, holding me, and the feeling that I'm warm for the first time after a really, really long winter. I can't really remember how I stayed warm in bed this whole time when he wasn't right there next to me, against me. "Please."

"I missed you being cranky in the morning." He kisses my shoulder. "Come on."

I have to hold back the reply that I did _not _miss waking up next to a morning person, because it's patently untrue so long as he's the morning person. I moan instead. "I don't want to go to work."

"Me neither."

"You're not working." Damnit. I forgot how good he is at luring me into conversation to wake me.

"I meant you."

I don't say anything for a couple of minutes because I can't do anything but lie there trying not to break down into a soppy mess, hearing that, that he really does want me here, with him. I just stroke the back of his hand, his nails, his wrists...there's this feeling, still there, like it's a fleeting thing and I have to soak it all up, memorize him, before it's gone. I guess "trust issues" are still on my to-do list.

"Coffee and toast?"

"Mm-mm. Tea."

"_Tea_?" He says it like I've asked for snake venom.

"You said you were giving up caffeine. I thought…"

"Can't give up certain things," he sort of mumbles it into my shoulder. "Not if you love them too much."

* * *

The ER seems emptier, even with patients overflowing into the hallway. Crenshaw looks like he's auditioning for a zombie thriller and Morris is practically a blur. I suspect he'll be ricocheting off walls soon unless someone cuts off his supply of Red Bull.

About an hour in, we get a flood of traumas, and I'm a little grateful for the distraction because I'm focused on what I'm doing and not the eon until I can go home and be with Luka and Joe again. It hasn't been like that for a long time, being so impatient, like a kid in last period at school, watching the clock inch forward. The last time I felt this preoccupied was right after the whole thing with Ames, and all I could think about was what Luka was doing and feeling back home, and what had almost happened, and how things could end so suddenly and I needed to know that we never wasted the time we had.

I end up running traumas back-to-back, which isn't so bad in the end because both of them make it, and I guess the adrenaline rush from a good outcome never really goes away. At least, it hasn't yet.

I walk into the lounge to check my phone, hoping Luka has responded to my text asking if maybe he'd consider going grocery shopping since I think he can tell by the state of the fridge that it's long overdue, and see Chaz there with a banker's box and Greg's locker open, just kind of staring at it.

"Chaz?"

"Oh." He sets down the box. "Hi. How are you?" He smiles at me, but it's forced, and he seems as closed-off and cordial as the first time I met him.

"I'm okay." I sit down on the bench next to where he's put the box and look up at him. "How are you doing?"

"You know…" He shrugs, and I want to say that, yes, I do know, and he can talk about it or cry or come over for dinner if he'd like, but I know none of those things will help right now, so I don't say anything. "I was going to clean out Greg's locker." He sits down next to me and sighs. "I don't know…you know…it's stupid. It shouldn't be a big deal."

I think back to helping Neela clean out Michael's things, and Carter admitting he'd kept Dr. Green's stethoscope, and the days after we got that fucking call saying Luka was gone, I kept finding myself standing there in front of his locker, just staring at it, trying to remember the combination, because I wanted to open it and touch his things, see what he'd put in there since the last time I'd seen it, see if he'd kept the picture of us from so long ago or the magnet I gave him, or if there was something in there to tell me he wasn't really gone. After we got the second call, from Carter, I stood in front of it again, and there it was in my head – his combination – and I decided maybe it was better not to know.

He sits down next to me and I put a hand on his back, and rub it lightly, just like when Joe is crying, and he breathes out a long, sad breath. "It's weird. I only knew him for a couple of years, but it's like we knew each other longer. He was my big brother, you know?"

I just nod, and think about how long it's been since I talked to Eric, and think of Luka and his brother and how happy Luka seemed around him, and there's a little pang of guilt that Joe will never have that.

"He was the first one I came out to. And he was – I mean, when my dad found out, Greg was just there for me. Like we'd always been brothers, and that's just what brothers do, they're there for you."

"He was really happy to have you in his life, Chaz. And he was so proud when you got into medical school. He kept going on and on about how his little brother was going to be a doctor." How Chaz was going to be a better med student than all the residents combined, how the Pratt brothers would own County, how they'd have to name a wing after them. And so on.

"You think?"

I nod.

"My mom – she told me this thing, how everyone should have someone that knows everything about them. I mean…he didn't know everything, but more than anybody else. I always figured we'd have time to talk about the rest. And now – "

I can see him trying not to cry, and I know from experience that men will do just about anything to keep from crying in front of someone else, at least someone they're not related or married to. "Here." I stand up and deliberately keep my back to him so he can wipe his nose and everything, and I pull a book out of Greg's locker. "Let me help."

"_Physician's Desk Reference_?"

"Hold onto that. You'll need it for school." I take Greg's lab coat off the hook. "And this."

"I can't – "

"Trust me. He'd want you to wear it."

"We're not even allowed to wear them yet."

I smile and hold it out to him. "Exactly."

* * *

I keep thinking about what Chaz said about having someone that knows everything about you, and how he always thought there would be more time, and it sticks with me the whole day, how many things I've never told Luka, how there are things I told my therapist in rehab and the other patients, but not a soul on the outside. It's a part of my life that I shared with people I barely knew, who barely knew me, except they knew things no one else did. And then there's Maggie, who knows about my childhood, about what went on between us, but I barely tell her anything, now, and haven't really since I was a teenager. And then Luka, who does know me better than anyone, except for those gaping portions of my past that I've avoided talking about – the things that Maggie knows, and the people from rehab – and suddenly, I feel like I need to tell him, not just pieces, but everything. The things I keep buried as much as possible. It's like if I don't tell him, I'm not really there, completely, I'm still the person I was when we first met, guarded and only an external shell of Abby, letting him see only what I was comfortable with and keeping him away from the parts of myself I hated. And we've gotten better, so, so much better, but for the first time, I feel like some isn't enough; he needs to know all of it. I _need_ him to know all of it.

Back when we were first together, I remember feeling exhausted sometimes, working so hard to keep the parts of my life that I didn't like – alcoholism, Richard, Maggie, and so on – under wraps, and trying at the same time to be with someone who I liked significantly more than I wanted to. It scared me shitless, how much I liked Luka, because liking him and getting closer and closer to the point of loving him meant vulnerability, on my part.

And here I am now, eight years later, and I feel like I have to be vulnerable with him, in order to make this work, and in order to actually get past all the things that are holding me back from the "us" element of the relationship. We share an apartment and a bed and a child and all of these things that come with a relationship, except there's still this border between us, and for the first time I want to get rid of it. Not become solely a "we" like some annoying couples who do every little thing together, but a "we" in the sense…I don't even really know what sense. I just know that I want him to be that person Chaz talked about.

* * *

I'm all wound up by the time I get home, and I want to drag Luka off into the other room and unleash the contents of my soul, but there is a time for that, and it comes after I deal with my child, who decides upon my entering the apartment that he's going to be very, very clingy, and that I don't get much of a choice in the matter.

Not that I mind Joe being glued to me, although it's less endearing when I'm not permitted to put him in his high-chair for dinner without a full assault on my eardrums. So I make an attempt at eating dinner with him on my lap while Luka looks on in what I take to be a combination of amusement, affection, and relief that he gets to eat _his _dinner unimpeded.

"Do you think this some sort of weird reaction to us being under one roof again?"

Luka shrugs. "I think he's just having one of those days."

"One of what days?"

"You know…how do they call it? Something about being two?"

"Terrible twos? Oh, god, don't even say that." I study Joe, who is trying to fit a tortellini around his index finger like a ring. "He's not…" It hits me. "Oh my god. He's going to be two."

Luka raises an eyebrow at me. "You're just figuring that out?"

"I just…I mean, I knew that. But I didn't really realize it was so soon." Joe holds up his hand proudly, apparently indicating that he's engaged to pasta. "He's still a baby."

"Not baby!" Joe stares daggers up at me.

Luka laughs. "I think you're alone on this one."

"How can you be okay with this?" I'm seriously shell-shocked, here. Suddenly, I swear I was pregnant with him last week and brought him home from the NICU yesterday. Logically speaking, he cannot possibly be a toddler.

"You'll see." He reaches across the table and takes the tortellini Joe is holding out to him. "It's a good thing, Abby."

"Not baby!" Baby and Abby are synonyms in Joe's book.

Luka laughs. "See? He's getting a sense of humor…becoming a real person. Just wait. You'll love it."

I suppose he's the one with experience, but personally, I'm not convinced. So I let Joe cling for the rest of the night with absolutely no complaints, save for when I need to pee, and Luka sort of has to wrangle him from my arms when it's time for him to go to bed, and I'm not too keen on leaving the nursery until I remember that thing that I've been waiting for the right time to do, and suddenly my throat's a little dry and my palms are all damp.

"Luka."

He cocks his head to one side, and I know he recognizes the tone in my voice. The same one from when I tore into the apartment two years ago and asked him to ask me again, the same one when I told him we needed to talk and dragged him out into the snow to inform him I was pregnant – the "I have something incredibly meaningful to discuss" tone that I take it he's gotten to like from the bemused expression on his face.

"I, um…I want to talk to you about something."

Bemused turns into slightly panicked, even though that's basically the same line I used the other times.

"It's not...anything bad."

His face relaxes, and I wonder if I've screwed the line up now that I did have something bad to tell him not so long ago.

We go into the bedroom and sit on the bed and I'm trying not to psych myself out, because I want to do this, but Jesus, it scares me.

"Abby?"

I take a deep breath. "I…I've never been really good at honesty, Luka." He looks terrified again. "I mean, not with…sharing things. About myself. And I was thinking that maybe…I should. Tell you things that I don't really want to, except, I mean, I think maybe I do want to tell you." Now he looks confused as hell. I start over. "You know me better than anyone else, and there's still this whole…void, I guess…of things I don't talk about, about my past, and things I think about, and – I mean, like, I never talked about Joe growing up and how that scared me. And I was thinking…I should. Talk to you. About all of it."

It must register what I'm blathering on about, because he smiles and strokes my cheek. "You can. You should, if you want. I want you to."

"Good, because…I was kind of thinking of talking to you…now."

* * *

I don't really notice the clock but when I've finally stopped talking, I realize it's past midnight, and I've been talking for three hours, about everything – well not everything, three days isn't even enough, let alone three hours, but a hell of a lot – about being a kid and Maggie, about my father, about my first marriage, about the one we're in now, about things I never thought I'd ever say to him, or anyone else, for that matter.

He holds me for a long time, after that, stroking my hair and just breathing very softly on my neck, and there's a part of me that's terrified by having told him what I did, and another part of me that feels like something has shifted, been removed, in the space separating us. I hold him back, or rather, grab onto him, and for the first time in my life, I let myself feel something about what happened besides shame and disgust for myself, for the things in my life I wished for a long time I could just forget.

"I…thank you. For telling me."

I nod and sniffle kind of pitifully, but I smile and if my nose wasn't stuffed to the point that I can't breathe real well, I'd tell him thanks, too, for listening.

"You can tell me these things. Whatever they are. I – I'm sorry we didn't do that before."

"So can you."

He nods, kind of thoughtfully, and stares off for a minute or so. "I haven't talked to anyone about it. Ever, Abby."

"You can. If you want, I don't want to make you –"

"I should, I think. We should. I want to…do that, I think."

And that, there, is the thing I've been wanting, too, for him to be okay with telling me, because I know how much it hurts him, and maybe I can make it hurt a little less, if he doesn't have to hold onto those things alone. "Tell me."

He doesn't say anything for a long time, and I start to worry, maybe he won't, but then he looks down, and back up at me. I can see that same fear in his face that I felt, and suddenly it hurts, the realization that we're only now doing this, trusting each other, and I could kick myself for not just coming out with it. But maybe, maybe, that's something we had to do this way, after things fell apart, to get to a place where we both realize we need to. "You know Ana's sister?"

I nod.

"She was how Niko met Ana. She and Niko were in university together." He takes a breath, and I reach out for his hand and he squeezes it, and puts his other hand on top, and I can feel them both shaking, and then I see it, in his eyes, that he's not remembering so much as reliving, and I have to fight the urge to tell him to stop, because the realization of how much it's hurting him to do this is overwhelming. But he looks at me, again, and swallows, and I shut up. "She was in Vukovar, when…in the war. After," he takes another breath, "after Danijela and the kids died, I went to the hospital, to help. There were so many people, and not many doctors, and I didn't really have anywhere else to go, so…I went. And she was there, with Iva. Her husband…" It takes me about a quarter of a second to know what he is going to say, so I nod again and squeeze his hand, because I don't want him to have to. He keeps going. "She was pregnant with Mirna. About a week after I went there, she went into labor. I think it was three or four weeks early. I, uh…I delivered her. Mirna."

It seems almost like a little thing to share, almost, except I know what the underlying thing is in it all. He delivered the baby, someone's child, and his own children had just died. I can't even imagine. I don't know what I'd have done in his place, if Joe had died and I was there, in the middle of that, and delivering a healthy baby.

"It means peace. She wanted…hoped…"

"Luka." I crawl forward, and kiss him, and then wrap my arms around him, tight, and it's the same as before, when he was holding me, just reversed, and then he begins to cry.

It's terrifying, because I've seen him cry maybe a handful of times, and at first it's just a few tears, and then he's sobbing, and I cry too, and rock him and kiss his neck, and we just sit there, together, crying and for the first time grieving things we never told anyone else, being raw, together. When we've both stopped, I look up at him, and he just takes my face in his hands and kisses me, and it's desperate, almost, and he takes off my shirt and I take his off, too, and we're naked, a minute later, clutching each other. He stops, though, and touches my cheek. "Is this…okay? I don't – "

"Yes."

That first night we were together, in his hotel room, it was an escape. I knew it was, and maybe I should have felt hesitant because it was strange, being with him for the first time under those circumstances, but the only thing I could think of was that I wanted him not to hurt. This isn't like that. It's like…it's like we're both finally open to each other, stripped down to the parts we've both been hiding, and realizing how much we need each other, want each other, for the whole better or worse, sickness, health, all of that, and that even the things we couldn't say and kept hidden are out there, for the first time, we still want each other.

He's gentle, then, less frenzied and just sweet, and tender, and he keeps touching me, my face, my hands, the scar from the c-section, like he's touching my history and telling me he knows it's there and wants me all the same. And I look at him, the whole time, until I can't because he's moving down me, slowly, and kissing me, and I close my eyes and just feel it, him, touching everything. I think for a second that he's going to make a detour, and I'm about to tell him hell no, don't even consider it, because we're going to do this together, and he either reads my mind or wants that, too, because there's his face again, serious, looking right back at me, and then he's inside me and it takes me all of eight seconds to come and I do, again, when he does, and we're both gasping and holding onto each other for dear life. I look at him and he has the same look on his face as I do, like he's shocked by the whole thing, and, oh right, _that's_ how that feels. Except, maybe this time feels even better.

It hits me that this is as close as two people can be at a given moment: physically together and emotionally vulnerable, like our skin is gone and we're just touching each other, muscles, veins, bones, nothing between the things that make us people. We don't move for a while, and he's still inside me, like he knows that I don't want to lose any contact, and maybe he doesn't either. "I love you, Abby," he says, whispers, and I shiver a little bit, hearing that and feeling this at the same time.

"I love you, too." It comes out sort of hoarse and breathy at once.

He plays with my hair a little, still on top of me, his weight distributed just so, so I'm not crushed but blanketed, and I make little patterns on his back. "We should do this more."

I smile and laugh a little. "Yeah."

"Oh." He chuckles. "Not that…well, that, too…but talking, I mean."

"Yeah."

"I want this to work. Forever. So…maybe we both have to do this, talk to each other about the hard stuff."

"Yeah." My brain is a little fuzzy, but I'm getting what he says, I'm just not coherent enough to respond properly. "Can we…maybe do that later, though?"

"Mmhmm."

I turn and find his lips and kiss him, and he kisses me back, and he shifts a little, so clearly we're on the same page. "Luka." I pull back as it's very difficult to talk with his tongue in my mouth. "Make love to me."

He nods, and leans his head to one side, kissing the flesh just under my earlobe, nuzzling my neck. "Forever, Abby."


	4. Just Like Starting Over

**A/N:** I really, really enjoyed writing this piece, despite how long it took between updates and how few reviews I received (yes, that's partly intended as a passive-aggressive swipe at anyone reading now who doesn't review). I went back and forth on continuing it past the intended four chapters, but my design was always to fill in the four-day gap between "Chicago Way/Life After Death" and the "three days late" anniversary I mentioned in "Full of Grace." So, really, pushing it any further just didn't seem organic. Instead, I'm planning to write a third piece that fits in with my rendering of canon as begun in "Full of Grace" and here in "Walk On," even if I get absolutely no reviews whatsoever because, well, I enjoy writing. I don't know exactly when I'll start posting, or how often I'll update, but, you know, eventually.

A million thanks to Essy for betaing and to those who did review. And happy birthday (albeit a bit late) to ILA4E!

* * *

**"(Just Like) Starting Over"**

The alarm goes off at six, and I reach up to whack it and realize, a second too late, that I'm doing so with the wrong hand.

"Shit!"

Luka jerks awake. "Wha'appnd," he mumbles very incoherently and in the process hits his head squarely against my chest. I yelp, again.

"Luka!"

"Oops." For reasons beyond me, he does not move his head. I briefly consider the notion that he's concussed and then realize, oh right, the Y chromosome thing.

"As good as last night was, this is not the time for an encore."

"Mmm hmm." His mouth is right in that dip where my sternum ends, right below my breasts, and I sort of shiver and try to remember why it's not the time. Oh, right. Work.

I hate work.

"Gotta get ready."

"I'm ready." Cleary.

"For _work,_" I breathe.

"You always hit 'snooze' twice. Plenty of time."

* * *

"I told you I was going to be late." I start fumbling with buttons and he comes over to help me, still smiling.

"You didn't seem to be in any rush, yourself."

I can't stop myself from blushing. His hands linger a little longer than necessary at the bottom button and I entertain the notion of not going in to work and going back to bed, instead, before I remember we're still understaffed. But seriously, I don't think I've felt this good in…well, since our wedding night.

"Listen, I was thinking…maybe you'd want to have dinner tonight. Out, somewhere. Just us."

"You mean…like a date?"

"Not exactly." But he smiles. "I was thinking more like an anniversary."

"I think we might have already passed that by."

"I thought…maybe instead, today could be our anniversary."

He doesn't have to explain why. I get it – not wanting our anniversary to be tied in with the same day we lost someone we both cared about so much. But at the same time, it wasn't just a year after the day we got married, it was the day he came back home. It will always be bittersweet, but for me, I know that will always be the day that means something monumental in our relationship. I tell him as much, and he nods. "You're right. I just…but, no, you're right."

"We could still have dinner. A belated one."

"Yeah." He slides his thumb up my cheek, his fingers following behind. "Pick you up at eight?"

I reach up and kiss him. "It's a date."

* * *

I'm still smiling like a complete idiot by the time I get to County, and Chuny sees me. "Looks like you and Luka patched things up."

I go four shades of red and cover my face with my good hand until I can stop grinning and my cheeks return to their normal temperature. "Mmhmm."

"I'm happy for you." She motions to the computer. "Now Frank can change his background back."

Morris skids to a stop behind the desk and snatches up a couple of charts from the rack.

"Abby. Head lac and concussion in three."

He slides the chart across the desk so fast I can't catch it in time. Gates picks it up and holds it out. "Trade you for what's behind curtain number two."

"Lenny's all yours, Gates. He likes bubbles in his bath."

Mr. Wagner in three is one of those old men who calls me "dear" and not "doctor" and who makes several passes at me, despite the forty year age gap, but I do my level best to chalk it up to his concussion and pretend not to notice when his hand grazes my ass since at least he had the decency to invite me to dinner first. I very deliberately scratch my ear with my left hand and he seems to get the hint. "Have you lived in Chicago long?" He changes gears. I recognize that tone in his voice and realize it's not so much my ass that he wants contact with as another human being.

"About half my life. You?"

"I moved here with my wife, Nora, after I got out of the service. I was a war hero, you know. Two purple hearts and a silver star."

"Ah, so a little bump on the head is nothing for you, right?"

"It hurts more now that I'm getting on in years. And now that Nora's gone, I have to drag myself into the doctor's."

"She was a doctor?"

"A nurse. She was with the army." He beams.

"I was a nurse for awhile. It's a tough job."

"Oh, she was the best. She could give you a shot and you wouldn't even feel it."

"Haleh over there is the best blood draw this side of the Mason-Dixon."

"Oh yes, she's the nice lady who took my blood pressure. In my day, they couldn't even come into hospitals like these, you know."

"Mmhmm." I briefly entertain the idea of smacking him with his own chart but decide it's probably against the Hippocratic oath. Old people will never cease to amaze me with the crap that comes out of their mouths.

"Times have changed. Although you can't know much about it, can you? You're just a baby. You must be what – thirty, thirty-five?" He's redeemed for his last comment and I smile inadvertently. "My youngest girl is that age. Can you imagine? In diapers just yesterday and now she wants me to move to California so she can take care of _me._"

"Daughters want to make sure their parents are okay." Oops. I still haven't returned Maggie's voicemail from last week. I make a mental note to do that at some point.

"I suppose it's time to make a change. I've been living in this city for fifty years, now, and the winters are hard on my bones. It would be nice to see the ocean."

I flash on Luka, that day, by Lake Michigan, saying we should make a fresh start someplace new, where no one knows us. And maybe Mr. Wagner's right – time for a change. I suddenly understand what Luka said about too many ghosts here, in these walls, and that's what I've been feeling since I walked in here yesterday morning, haunted. Like Greg finally brought it crashing down on me, all of what's happened here. Losing Mark Greene, who will always be, in my mind, what I hope to be as a doctor; Maggie's overdose and feeling so small in that moment, like a little girl, needing so much for my mother to just be there tomorrow because I still needed her, as screwed up as she was; Joyce and Brian, and never feeling so scared in my life that I couldn't protect myself from everything around me, even after how hard I'd worked all my life to believe I was immune; Lucy and Sandy Lopez and Gallant and even Romano – all of it, over time, building up to a sort of boiling point of grief. I smile at Mr. Wagner. "Change can be good. But before you pack your bags, let's get you fixed up."

* * *

I'm stuck in a trauma when Luka comes in, and I catch him from the corner of my eye, watching through the window, sort of smiling, the spectator for once, I guess.

"Nice catch on the splenic infarct."

I dump the plastic gown in the HAZMAT bin and for a second I feel kind of proud. "Thanks."

"It's weird."

"What is?"

"You…not being a student, anymore. Bossing residents around."

"I'm still a resident. And I don't boss people around."

"Sorry." He grins. "I meant 'teach.' And you're an attending except for, what, two weeks?"

I don't say anything, mostly because I'm still not ready to call myself that. I've been a student – admittedly on and off – for almost a decade. I feel like I still need training wheels, most days. Even days when I don't actually fuck anything up, which, okay, are getting a lot more common than the days I do, I still feel a little like a kid among the grown-ups. I've had the comfort of a safety net – someone to look over my shoulder and make sure I don't screw up too badly – for so long, not having it is still daunting.

"Abby." He takes my arm and turns me around a little, so I'm facing him. Reading me, I guess. "You're a great doctor."

I flash back on the night I kissed him, the first time. "I had a good teacher."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. You – it's weird for me, too. I'm not used to being…you know…not your student."

He shrugs nonchalantly. "Well, I mean, I think you still have that schoolgirl outfit, somewhere."

"Shut up." I shove him a little, and he laughs, and it's just…it feels good, joking and flirting like this again. Being in that place where we can do that. I grab his hand and squeeze it. "Come on. I'll sign out and we can go. I'm starving."

"Me too." He sort of leers at me. "Just save room for dessert, yeah?"

* * *

I feel a little underdressed and have half a mind to complain that he ought to have warned me he was taking me somewhere expensive, but it's hard to actually complain given that the place he's picked has pecan pie so fabulous it should be considered a controlled substance . "We didn't need to go somewhere fancy," I whisper as we're heading to our table.

"I know." He manages to pull my chair out for me before the host has a chance. The host eyes Luka and it's kind of like something on the nature channel, and Luka clearly has the bigger antlers. "I wanted to. We're celebrating."

We don't say anything until our waitress comes by, as the menu is roughly the length of a novel, and she launches into some recommendations from the wine list. I nod at Luka so he knows it's fine if he wants something, but he just asks for two club sodas. I wait until she's gone before I say anything. "It's okay if you want to get a drink, Luka. I'm fine."

"You said it bothered you."

"When did I say that?"

"Uh…" He hedges a minute. "I think when you were…you know…"

"Drunk." No wonder I can't remember. "I've said a lot of stupid things when I was drunk."

"I still…we never talked about it. We should have, I guess, I should have – "

"No. It wasn't your job to read my mind. It was my fault, I just…" Ran away from the whole thing, tried to pretend I wasn't an alcoholic. Like a moron. "I should have brought it up, myself. When I was sober, I mean."

He plays with his fork a little. "Does it bother you? Honestly?"

I want to tell him no, because the last thing I want to do is put some restriction on him, force him to change his habits to accommodate my problems, but at the same time, lying to him has not gotten me anywhere in the past. "A little. I mean…you don't have to give it up. And you know, if we go out, that's fine, I just…maybe, for now at least, not in the house? Or if you just want to get something and finish it…I don't know. I don't want to ask you to do that."

"You don't have to." The waitress comes back with our sodas and asks if we're ready to order, which obviously, we're not, so I tell her we need a few more minutes. Luka raises his glass. "Cheers."

"Živeli." I mangle the word horribly, but he doesn't look like he cares.

He reaches across the table for my hand and squeezes it. "Živeli."

* * *

"I have something for you."

We're finishing up dinner and I'm trying to decide if I want to order pie to go in case Luka's version of "dessert" turns out to involve actual food or if I just want to go for it. And maybe order another slice to go, anyway. "You didn't need to."

"I know that." He smiles and reaches into his jacket for something and hands it over to me. "You said it's traditional."

It's the real estate section of the _Boston Globe_. I think back to Mr. Wagner, and talking about change and fresh starts, and what I'd felt earlier about County being haunted. "Boston?"

"Yeah. I mean…it's just an idea. But they have great hospitals…great schools…look at the next page, though."

I flip it open and see an ad circled, with a picture of an old colonial-style house.

"It's in Cambridge. Near Harvard, so Joe can get his sights on it early." I smile at that. "I'm not saying that house, or even that city, or even that we have to move – "

"It's beautiful." And it is – it's a tiny little picture, but I can see a porch and a yard and the bolded words in the ad referencing the newly renovated master bath. "I don't want to make a decision, right now, but…I want to at least think about it. Look into it."

"Into Boston?"

"Yeah. You're right, I mean – of all the places we could go, that's…there's the Brigham, Mass General, Tufts…" I trail off. "What?"

"You know all the hospitals there?"

"I mean…no, there are at least a dozen teaching hospitals, and more that aren't – "

"You thought about it."

I take a sip of water so I have time to compose a decent poker face. "I might have done a little research at work." I guess now isn't the right time to lay out a list of all the great schools Joe could go to – Exeter, for example, or maybe Andover or Boston Latin. It's probably also not the right time to qualify exactly what I mean by "a little."

He raises an eyebrow. "And you thought Boston?"

"I…" I play around with my napkin. "I thought of a couple of places, but yeah, Boston was sort of an obvious option. And I thought, you know, you might like to be near the ocean. Not that it's the Adriatic, but it's still…ocean."

He looks at me a few moments without saying anything and I have to wonder if he's thinking what I am, which is that it's a little freaky that we both landed on the same city. But then, knowing each other for nine years has probably contributed to a mutual thought process. I don't know that I want to finish all his sentences for him, but I guess it's nice that we are at a point where it's not a guessing game. Finally he turns a little in his seat and pulls something else out of his coat. "I have something else, too."

"Luka, you don't need – "

"I know that." He puts some emphasis on it, like it's a loving way of telling me to shut up and stop arguing against getting presents. I take the hint. "It's not an anniversary present, it's just…a present."

He hands me something about the size and shape of a wallet wrapped in tissue paper. I open it. "You got me a GPS?"

"Yeah." He's smiling. "You know, the compass is good and all, I just thought…if you ever needed a little extra help…"

And see, this right here, is what I've been wanting for so long, now – even before I told him the truth about everything, before I went to rehab, since he got in that taxi and left for Croatia, five days after we'd gotten married – Luka, my husband, the man I love more than I can even begin to explain or understand, who is corny and romantic and who says and does things straight out of John Cusack movies and has this monumental, magnificent heart, sitting here with me celebrating our anniversary belatedly and making it clear that he wants me, not just in the Biblical sense, but as the person he chooses to be with. After everything, knowing everything, with all the baggage that goes along with the both of us – it's still what he wants, still with that same smile as when I kissed him eight years ago.

It's incredible to think it's been that long, both because it seems like so long ago and because, at the same time, I do feel like I've known him longer. But it was nine years ago that I met him, and eight years ago that I made a move so idiotically uncalculated and unlike me that it ended up being the smartest thing I'd done up until then, and kissed him. And seven since we broke up and probably about that long since we started learning how to actually be friends, and about two and a half years since we made a baby together, and just the tiniest bit less than that since I fell completely and uselessly in love with him, and here we are, nine years after this whole thing started, celebrating a year that we've been married. Crazy, right? Absolutely crazy.

Well, mostly crazy that it took us that long to get our acts together.

I put down the GPS and take his hand, instead. "I don't need it."

He looks a little perplexed. "What?"

"I…it's very sweet, Luka. And…actually, really adorable. But…I don't need it. I know where you are."

He reaches his other hand out and takes my free one and holds them both tightly a few moments and I see him close his eyes a little bit, and realize that maybe even if it wasn't the reaction he'd expected, it was the one he'd needed. He nods a little.

"I've always…known, Luka. It's just…" I try to think of something that fits with the metaphor, but it's not happening, so I give up. "I love you. And after all this…everything…I know what's at stake. I know what I need to do to hang onto it. And I'm going to do that, no matter what."

He gets up from the table and I don't even have time to register that people are probably looking or that, under normal circumstances, I'd feel pretty humiliated, but he sort of half-kneels, half-crouches in front of me and takes my face in his hands and just kisses me, like he's trying to cover all nine years in one kiss, and it's romantic and emotional and sexy and ridiculous and everything he is all at once, so I just kind of melt into it and let it happen.

"I love you," he whispers into my mouth, around my lips and tongue and into my breath.

"Luka." I'm laughing a little and crying a little and smiling so much it aches.

"Mmm?" His thumbs stroke my cheeks.

"Let's get out of here."


End file.
